Those evil red shorts

I don't know why I didn't chuck them out years ago, those cheap red three-quarter pants which I later cut-down into long shorts. They never fit that well, although being a bit on the loose side rather than a bit on the tight side probably made a difference. The thing is, I almost never wear shorts any more anyway, due to my paranoid fear of skin cancer (you know - Southern hemisphere summer + ozone hole = big time UV).

And I have a really big reason to get rid of them, too. They leak red colour every single time I put them in the washing machine. This was not been a problem at first, because almost none of my clothes are white (there's a reason for that, and it's got something to do with the likelihood of spilling coffee over oneself).

Unfortunately, my evil red shorts are a real problem now, because the boy has taken a liking to wearing white t-shirts. He only complained a little when, one Saturday, I presented him with two pairs of pink socks. He started to get a little irritated when I turned his red and white shirt into a red and pink shirt. When I turned his worn-once-only ninety-dollar black and white shirt into a - you guessed it - black and pink shirt, the boy announced he would do his laundry from now on (not that I'd hold him to it - I'm still waiting for him to mop the kitchen floor, which he hasn't done for three months).

I shouldn't blame the shorts, really. It's my own fault for forgetting, after owning them for maybe four years, that they tend to share their rosiness. All the same, I'm going to throw them out...just as soon as they finish drying on the line. And my New Year's Resolution is to always properly sort the laundry.